Nine and a half years after he was extradited to India from Portugal, underworld gangster Abu Salem was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Special TADA court here on Wednesday for his involvement in the murder of city-based builder Pradeep Jain in 1995.
Special TADA Judge G A Sanap also handed out life imprisonment to Salem’s driver Mehndi Hassan in the case. He set off the sentence of the third convict in the case – 86-year-old Virendra Jhamb — against the period of detention undergone by him in prison during the various stages of investigation in the case.
Forty-six-year-old Salem and two others — Hasan and Jhamb – were convicted on February 16 by the TADA Court under sections 302 (murder) 120 B (conspiracy) of the IPC and other relevant sections of TADA for the murder of builder Pradeep Jain.
Jain was shot dead by assailants hired by Salem outside his Juhu bungalow-cum office on March 7, 1995, after he allegedly refused to part with his huge property to Salem.
Salem’s hired killers had staged the murderous attack on Jain, when the latter and two others, including his brother Sunil Jain, were discussing a project involving the construction of a seven-star hotel in Goa. Jain had sustained six bullet wounds. He succumbed to injuries before he could be rushed to the nearby Cooper Hospital.
“Abu Salem is sentenced to life imprisonment for the offences of murder and criminal conspiracy,” Special TADA Judge G A Sanap observed, while handing out sentence to Salem.
Earlier on Friday last, the Prosecution —in line with an undertaking given by New Delhi to lisbon at the time of his extradition from Portugal to India in November 2005 had scaled down its plea on quantum of punishment sought for Salem in the Pradeep Jain murder case from capital punishment to life imprisonment.
Wednesday’s was the first-ever sentence that an Indian court has handed out to Salem, once a close aide of Pakistan-based underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, after he was extradited to India along with his girl friend Monica Bedi on November 11, 2005. A key accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, Salem is being tried six other cases registered in various parts of India.
On January 31, 2012, a TADA court rejected Salem’s plea for closure of his trial in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, after the CBI opposed his plea on the ground that it had challenged Portugal Supreme Court’s order terminating his extradition in that country’s constitutional court.